Varina Howell

"Varina Davis is a lady in any event," Southern women of the aristocratic circles of Washington told the war correspondent of the London Times who had been sent to the National Capital to report all the news he could gather concerning the secession of the Southern States from the great American Union. There was a finality in their tones and manner as if the fact settled the whole question and right of ...
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"Varina Davis is a lady in any event," Southern women of the

aristocratic circles of Washington told the war correspondent of the

London Times who had been sent to the National Capital to report

all the news he could gather concerning the secession of the Southern

States from the great American Union. There was a finality in their tones

and manner as if the fact settled the whole question and right of

secession. And being such perfect ladies themselves, who could be a better

judge of what it took to be one. . . . They further informed him that

Varina was popular and had friends and social influence in Washington,

adding with pursed lips that she belonged to the set they called 'nice

people'; not like 'such people' as he had seen in the White House.

Thus Mrs. Jefferson Davis was described to one who, with piqued curiosity,

was soon to meet her as the First Lady of the Southern Confederacy. . . .

But Varina Howell Davis came proudly to her high station. She was not

without a due understanding of its significance, nor was she without the

feeling that she, in some degree, deserved the distinction."

--from Chapter I

In this volume, Mrs. Rowland has written a charming and accurate

historical narrative of the Southern Confederacy in which the wife of

Jefferson Davis plays a part that holds and fascinates the reader. The

narrative, written in an easy, yet frank and forceful style, denotes the

work as an important contribution to American biography.